Off the map 12 March 2005, 20:21

A list post from drew announced his “awesome” move from the ghetto to the right side of the tracks:

i always figured i would want to live in a hip part of town, around all the crap that is in the hip part of town, but seriously, how often do you go to those little community stores like JIM’S BOWLING REPAIR or NORTH CLINTONVILLE SHOE REPAIR?

I never realized how important it was to go to Jim’s Bowling and Shoe Repair until I moved to Edmonton. It seems a losing battle when you go to little restaurants or Mom ‘n’ Pop stores just because they’re “independent” in a vain effort to stave off the gnawing horrors of box store land.

Never even mind the bar rags’ picks of the citizenry (best late night eats 2003? Rotten Ronnie’s). Why indeed go out of your way to go local, when you can always drive to Velocichapters to buy crap literature, or patronize some other giant with obscene piles of no selection?

On the book front, there are two great independent bookstores in town: Greenwood’s and Audrey’s, which hold a candle to Duthie’s in Vancouver. This means what you want is in stock, the shelves are browseable like a library’s, and NO scented candles or Godiva chocolates.

I’m all thinking about hip neighbourhoods and walkable, livable cities even before drew’s post.

HOT IN THE CITY

Earlier this morning I heard on the radio that Vancouver hit the #3 spot in a worldwide quality of life survey of cities. Considering Calgary is down at #25 with gems like San Francisco, you can see the cost-of-living/safety/culture/temperature give-and-take right there.

A sample ranking

1 Zurich
2 Geneva
3 Vancouver, Vienna
5 Munich, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt
8 Bern, Copenhagen, Sydney
14 Toronto
20 Ottawa
22 Montreal
25 Calgary, Honolulu, San Francisco
36 Boston
39 New York
42 Portland, Washington
68 Houston

I’ve been to a lot of the top places and am inclined to agree. Some 2004 greats like Auckland, Amsterdam, Brussels, Melbourne, Berlin, Luxembourg, Stockholm, Wellington, Perth, Dublin, Adelaide, and Brisbane are probably up there with at least Calgary this year.

Sources

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Comment

  1. # And then like 1348 days ago Oorgo goes:

    I wonder how the names of these cities get added for consideration. Votes? World-recognition? Edmonton probably loses out just because of the big frickin' refineries and plants and junk on the outskirts of the city.

    — Oorgo · 1348 days ago · #

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